


Shot to the heart

by UpInOrbit



Category: X1 (Korea Band)
Genre: Assassins, Blood, Childhood Friends, Cops, Flashbacks, Friends to strangers to enemies, Light Angst, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, depictions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22972156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UpInOrbit/pseuds/UpInOrbit
Summary: “I knew they’d send you to kill me,” he says. The smile never leaves his lips even as he faces Dongpyo’s stern eyes, the long knife that dangles between his fingers, it’s wicked blade resplendent under the warm glow of the lamp.“I’m sorry,” he receives for an answer, and Hyeongjun’s smile broadens.“Don’t be. I always knew it’d come down to this. It was fun while it lasted.”Or the one in which Hyeongjun is a cop, and Donpyo isn't.
Relationships: Son Dongpyo/Song Hyeongjun
Comments: 7
Kudos: 17





	Shot to the heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sonus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonus/gifts).



> MARTAAAAAAA HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!! I hope you'll have a great day, because that's what you deserve. I love you so much, one of my favourite people ever, an amazing, great, awesome and caring person, and I hope you know that!! I'm not sure if this is a suitable birthday present for you but I tried my best and I hope it's up to par with what you deserve!  
> I know you knew you were going to get a fic from me, but I'm not entirely sure if you suspected it was this fic you were getting. Either way, I hope you'll enjoy it! It is not as angsty as I thought it'd turn out to be but I still hope it'll be an enjoyable read ^^  
> Happy birthday Marta, I love you so much!! <333

The sound of the phone ringing is strident, a loud cry that breaks the peaceful quietness of the rain gently tapping against the windows. It screams and screams, the ringtone blaring in the night, until Hyeongjun reaches forward and picks it up, his voice calm as he answers.

“Hyeongjun.”

“Your cover has been blown, they’re going after you! You have to get out of there!!” Minhee’s voice is deafening as he screams at him down the phone, but Hyeongjun merely smiles, a slight turn of his lips that’s both bitter and resigned.

“Thank you, Minhee,” he speaks calmly into the phone.

“Hyeongjun? Hyeongjun, wha—,” Minhee’s voice gets cut when Hyeongjun hangs up on him. He calls back almost immediately, but Hyeongjun dismisses it, and leaves the phone on the table beside him, before turning around.

“I knew they’d send you to kill me,” he says. The smile never leaves his lips even as he faces Dongpyo’s stern eyes, the long knife that dangles between his fingers, it’s wicked blade resplendent under the warm glow of the lamp.

“I’m sorry,” he receives for an answer, and Hyeongjun’s smile broadens.

“Don’t be. I always knew it’d come down to this. It was fun while it lasted.”

Dongpyo takes a step forward, knife glinting in the dark. Hyeongjun takes a step back, smile broadening.

It’s a game, after all. One of cat and mouse, with only losers and no winners. He always knew it’d come to this.

“You know I can’t let you kill me.”

Dongpyo opens his arms, saddened expression on his face, resignation etched on the lines of his body. It would almost fool Hyeongjun, if it wasn’t for the steel in Dongpyo’s eyes.

“And I can’t let you leave,” Dongpyo replies, taking another step forward as Hyeongjun reaches behind him, for the knife hidden there.

“Then I guess this is it,” he says.

Dongpyo nods slowly, never taking his eyes of Hyeongjun.

“This is it,” he repeats, before lunging forward, his arm tracing an arch towards Hyeongjun, aiming at his throat.

***

_Two kids, seated on the floor._

_Heavy hearts, bloodied hands, eyes that have seen too much._

_The Sun is setting in the horizon, dipping below the skyline, bathing everything in pink and orange tones._

***

Hyeongjun ducks, barely avoiding the blade that slashed through the air, just shy of his neck. He rolls across the ground, scrambling to get up, keeping just out of Dongpyo’s reach.

They’ve exchanged their positions, Dongpyo standing where Hyeongjun was just seconds ago. His face is hidden away by the darkness, his silhouette bathed in the pale silver that comes through the window.

Hyeongjun rushes to take his own knife out, eyes never leaving Dongpyo, tracking the slightest of moves, but Dongpyo makes no attempt to get closer to him. Instead, he seems to be watching Hyeongjun, like he’s committing his image to memory, afraid he’ll forget it, and Hyeongjun decides to take that small reprieve, the calm before the storm unleashes its anger upon them, to do the same thing.

Dongpyo’s taller, broader than he used to be, back then, a lifetime ago, but he’s still slim, petite. Delicate. People take a look at him and think they can take him but Hyeongjun knows better. He knows the anger, the viciousness that lurks behind Dongpyo’s seemingly innocent eyes, was there when the sweetness Dongpyo once possessed melted away, leaving him empty.

He’s seen everything Dongpyo has to offer, both the good and the bad, and he knows so much. Too much, even.

It’s always been them, after all.

“Why, Dongpyo?” He asks before he can stop himself.

His voice breaks the quiet that had settled around them, the words boisterous, commanding. Hyeongjun wants to take them back as soon as they leave his lips, but it’s too late. He doesn’t even know why he asked. It’s not like he doesn’t know the answer.

Dongpyo knows that too, and seems amused by the question, letting out a snort.

“You know why, Hyeongjun.”

***

The world tilts in its axis when Hyeongjun falls to the floor, forced there by a punch to his stomach. He folds over in pain, trying to cover the area to protect himself from further hits, but there are hands around his arms, keeping him in place. Blood trickles down a cut above his eyebrow, blinding his right eye.

Above him, someone snorts and kicks him.

He wishes he could fight, but he can’t even move. Clenching his teeth, he braces for the next kick he knows it’s going to come. His eyes are closed, head dizzy. He hears movement, and takes a deep breath.

“I answer for him,” a voice says.

The words are casual, no more than an offhanded comment, but Hyeongjun freezes in the spot. He opens his eyes, blinded by the morning Sun, shining upon them, and searches for the person that has spoken.

It’s not the same voice, it’s deeper and colder than it once was, but Hyeongjun would recognize it anywhere, any time, any place. Even if he forgot his own name, he knows he’d recognize that voice, ingrained deep inside him.

Sure enough, when he locates the source, it’s a familiar pair of eyes that he meets.

His breath gets caught in his throat for a tiny second, the time their eyes lock, and he feels a chill running down his spine. However, the owner of those eyes doesn’t spare him a minute of his time, and he turns around to look at his boss. 

Hyeongjun’s heart beats loud, rattling against his chest, the fear so thick he can almost taste it, but the indifference the other shows towards him makes it a bit easier to breathe.

“Are you sure about that, Pyo?”

Dongpyo looks back at Hyeongjun, cold eyes going over him, and Hyeongjun feels the fear rushing back.

“I am. He seems interesting enough,” he says, lips curving into a smirk.

***

“If anyone was to kill you, it was always going to be me,” Dongpyo says, breaking Hyeongjun free from his reverie. His voice sounds soft, almost intimate, like he’s telling him a secret, something for only them to know.

Hyeongjun nods, slowly.

What was once said as a promise, meant to comfort and soothe, has morphed into a threat.

It was a twisted promise. It was all they had.

Hyeongjun can’t say he’s surprised, though.

It’s always been them, after all.

He doesn’t think there’s a life in which they could possibly not find each other. Dongpyo and Hyeongjun. Hyeongjun and Dongpyo. There was never one without the other and, right from the start, this was the only possible outcome.

“I wish it hadn’t come to this,” Hyeongjun says, and he means it.

Dongpyo snorts again, even if he seems to believe him, a faint resignation in his voice as he speaks.

“You’re a cop and you came to us to bring us down from inside. Did you really think this could have ended any other way?” Dongpyo asks, and he’s right, they both know it.

Dongpyo then lunges forward, like he’s tired and just wants to get over with it. He moves too fast for Hyeongjun to react in time and they both tumble to the ground, Dongpyo on top, with Hyeongjun cushioning his fall. As he falls, Hyeongjun’s head hits the ground with enough force to bounce back, the impact making him bite his own tongue, the metallic taste of iron invading his mouth as he swallows down blood. Hyeongjun coughs and tries to move away, trashing against Dongpyo’s grip, but it’s to no avail, the room around him spinning wildly.

Dongpyo sits straight, his right arm up in the air, and then it lunges forward, burying his knife up to the hilt in Hyeongjun’s stomach.

The pain is excruciating, extending through Hyeongjun’s nerves like molten lava. Blood rushes from the wound and Hyeongjun stops squirming under Dongpyo to cover the injury and try to stop the blood flow. His vision darkens, black spots dancing in front of him, covering everything.

Hyeongjun thinks he sees Dongpyo’s lips moving but he can’t focus on anything that isn’t his stomach, the pain that flares throughout his body and the blood that rushes through his ears, muffling all other sounds around him. Distantly, though, through the black dots that cloud his vision, he sees Dongpyo move, extending his arm, up in the sky, and his eyes widen in realization.

As Dongpyo moves, Hyeongjun then jerks suddenly, catching Dongpyo by surprise, and throws him off balance. It’s not much, just enough for Dongpyo to move slightly, his arm lowering as he tries to take back the control.

Hyeongjun doesn’t allow him to, pushing Dongpyo away with a bloodied hand. Dongpyo moves his arm back, searching for support behind him and, before he finds it, Hyeongjun manages to throw him off his body. He moves away, scrambling to put some distance between them. Dongpyo, faster in his reflexes than Hyeongjun is, shots forward, but Hyeongjun raises his legs, kicking Dongpyo straight in the chest and knocking the air out of his lungs.

Dongpyo grunts in pain, a grimace contorting his features, and Hyeongjun stands up, backing away as fast as he can.

Blood drips between his fingers as he tries to contain it, to no avail, a growing puddle of blood beneath his feet. The pain is almost too much, and he feels lightheaded, on the verge of falling to his knees, but he knows he can’t, not if he wants to live to see another day. 

“You know you can’t win,” Dongpyo says, anger shimmering in his eyes.

He stands up, baring his teeth, a bloodied knife dangling from his fingers. His legs are covered in blood, but other than that, he seems almost unbothered by the whole ordeal. Hyeongjun’s own knife lays forgotten a couple of feet to his left, where it had slipped from Hyeongjun’s grasp when he fell. Before he can even think of picking it up, Dongpyo reaches forward, snatching it for himself, his grip on it steady.

Looking around, Hyeongjun knows this is the end. Dongpyo knows too, and he takes a step forward. Hyeongjun takes one back.

“There’s nowhere to go, Hyeongjun,” Dongpyo insists, his voice calm.

Pursing his lips, Hyeongjun takes another step back, and breathes in deeply. There’s only them in the building, surrounded by the sound of the rain falling outside, and the distant honking of a car. 

It was supposed to be a safety measure but now…

If he were to scream, no one would hear. If we were to die, no one would notice.

His heart beats loudly in his ears, rattling against his ribcage, and he can feel the edges of his consciousness begin to face away, darkness rapidly closing in. Time slips through his fingers and Hyeongjun makes a decision, one that is rash and stupid, but that is, really, the only one he can make.

Breathing in deeply, he forces his body to relax, the tension disappearing from his shoulders, and he smiles. That seems to take Dongpyo by surprise, as he freezes for a split second, eyes widening before he narrows them down in suspicion, and Hyeongjun takes advantage of that.

Reaching behind him, he closes his hand around a small, ugly vase, one that he bought on impulse to try and make the flat look more like a real home. It's ceramic, blue and yellow, with small, misshapen birds painted on it, and it breaks into a hundred pieces when it crashes against Dongpyo's face.

Dongpyo notices Hyeongjun's intentions before he throws the vase at him but by then it's too late, and there's little he can do to shield his head from the impact, his arms halfway there when Hyeongjun throws the vase like it's a projectile.

Without waiting to see what happens, Hyeongjun turns on his heels, and sprints towards the balcony. Behind him, he hears the sound of his vase shattering and Dongpyo cursing loudly, yelping in pain. Still, he doesn't look back, his eyes focused on the balcony before him. Reaching forward, he grabs the door's handle and rips the door open, ignoring the wound in his stomach and how the movement wants to make him cry in pain.

As he steps into the balcony, he hears Dongpyo running behind him, but it's too late. For every step Dongpyo takes, Hyeongjun takes another, and within three steps he's reached the end of the balcony, his fingers closing in around the railing.

He risks it then, looking over his shoulder, to find Dongpyo a couple of meters behind him, arms extended towards Hyeongjun like he wants to catch him. A trickle of blood falls from a wound just above his eyebrow, and his eyes are wide open, the shock and surprise he's feeling blatantly on display. Dongpyo opens his mouth to say something, but it's too late now.

Using the momentum from the run, Hyeongjun boosts himself over the railing and jumps, plummeting towards the ground.

***

Hyeongjun shivers under the light rain. It’s not raining heavily, barely a drizzle, but it has managed to soak his thin sweatshirt, and that, paired with the wind that hasn’t ceased to blow, is chilling him to the bone. 

He takes a brief look at the watch on his wrist. He’s late.

Ducking his head low, he makes sure the hood of his sweatshirt is fully covering his face and picks up the pace.

It doesn’t take him long to reach a building, inconspicuous and utterly unremarkable, fit in between a row of buildings exactly like itself. The street is empty, like it has been ever since Hyeongjun started to walk. Still, before he knocks on the door, he waits, scanning both sides of the street before knocking on the door with his knuckles.

The muffled sounds of footsteps come from the other side of the door. Something metallic can be heard, like the person inside is uncovering the peephole. Hyeongjun raises his head, looking straight at it as he waits.

After a couple of seconds come the sounds of locks being opened and the door opens slightly. A face peeks out from the thin opening, a chain preventing it from opening completely.

“Were you followed?” A deep voice asks.

Hyeongjun shakes his head and the door closes. The chain is unfastened, and the door opens once again, just long enough for Hyeongjun to slip in, the door closing behind him as soon as he sets foot inside.

The room he’s in is dark, and it takes Hyeongjun’s eyes some time to get used to the gloom. The person inside rushes to the side, turning on a small side lamp that bathes it all with its glow, the warm glow almost disguising the dark circles under their eyes.

“Minhee,” he says with a tired smile that does little to dissipate the worry etched in his friend’s face.

“Hyeongjun,” his friends rushes towards him, bringing a chair closer for him to sit. “How are you? Is everything going according to plan?”

Hyeongjun looks at him, pensively. He considers lying to him, but it’s too big a lie, and Minhee has been with him for far too long, he’d see through it. Plus, something like that… It’d endanger everything, not just him, but Minhee too, everything they’ve been working for the past two years. Hyeongjun might be one prone to reckless choices, but he doesn’t want to die.

Still, there’s a part of him that urges him to stay quiet, swallow down the words that threaten to rip him apart, and bury them deep inside of him, where no one will ever notice them. It’s something he’s been doing for so long it’s almost second nature by now.

And, anyway, Hyeongjun has been in this long enough to know that the best lies are the ones that stick the closest to the truth. Those are the ones you have to pick apart, look closely into the details before you manage to see all the places in which the pieces don’t fit.

“They don’t trust me yet, but I’ve gotten in,” he finally says. His words make Minhee’s shoulders sag with relief, and a smile breaks through his face for the first time in months. It makes him feel bad to have to wipe it out. “Minhee,” the seriousness in his voice makes Minhee look up, alarmed, all traces of a smile now gone. “Dongpyo was there too.”

Minhee’s hands, idly playing with a rip in his trousers, freeze, and he blanches.

“The one you knew as a kid?” He asks, his voice barely above a whisper. Hyeongjun nods. “We need to get you out,” he blurts as he stands up, running his hands through his hair, a million thoughts spinning madly in his mind. Alarmed, Hyeongjun stands up too. “You can’t stay there, it’s too dangerous, you won’t go back. I’ll call the boss and—“

Hyeongjun’s hand lunges forward to stop Minhee from pulling out his phone. Confused, Minhee looks at Hyeongjun.

“What are you doing? We need to end this now, Hyeongjun.”

Hyeongjun sucks in a shallow breath. _Details_ , he thinks. That’s where the magic lies.

“I only saw him from afar, Minhee. It was only for a moment, I saw him in passing.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Minhee replies.

“He doesn’t remember me, Minhee,” Hyeongjun insists.

“What?” Minhee blinks, surprised. 

His face, usually so guarded, is an open book, and Hyeongjun can clearly see him going over everything Hyeongjun has told him at some point about Dongpyo. It almost makes him want to tell the truth. Almost, but not quite.

“He saw me and he doesn’t remember me. I wouldn’t be here if he did.”

“You can’t stay there,” Minhee says, an air of finality to his words, and Hyeongjun tightens his grip on his friend’s wrist.

“I can’t leave, Minhee. We can’t. We’ve spent too much time on resources on this operation and if we leave now, it will all have been for nothing. _Nothing_ , Minhee. All those sleepless hours and living on edge for _years_ , gone in a blink,” Hyeongjun sees his friend’s resolve waver as the immensity of the consequences play out in his mind, and he pressed on. “He can’t do anything, Minhee, not when he’s nothing more than a courier who doesn’t even remember me.”

“Eunsang needs to know,” Minhee says, and Hyeongjun inwardly sags with relief, knowing he’s won. He doesn’t let any of that show in his face.

“If Eunsang knows, then Hangyul knows and then it’s over, Minhee,” he sees the doubt creeping into Minhee’s mind. “I can handle this, I really can,” he says, and Minhee shots him a hesitant look. “But they can’t know, or it’s over.”

“Does he really not remember you?”

Hyeongjun rushes to nod, so fast it almost gives him whiplash.

“He doesn’t, trust me.”

“You’ll have to inform me of your moves at all times,” Minhee warns him, and Hyeongjun represses the small smile that threatens to spread across his face. “And the first sign of trouble, you’re out. I mean it, Hyeongjun.”

“Of course,” he says, trying his best to look as earnest as possible.

Minhee scans his face carefully for a couple more of seconds, before nodding to himself and turning around to lead him deeper into the house. As Hyeongjun stands up to follow him, however, Minhee looks over his shoulder.

“You’re sure Dongpyo doesn’t remember you, right?”

“Positive,” he replies, smiling at Minhee with his best smile, and Minhee finally stops asking.

It leaves a sour taste in his mouth, but he knows he doesn’t have much choice.

_He’s interesting enough_.

The words cling to him like the remnants of a dream as he follows Minhee. 

***

Dongpyo looks down, hands perched on the railing. The rain pours down on him, droplets of water running down his cheeks and chin, almost like he’s crying. He rubs his hands against his face, trying to shield his eyes from the rain, but he smears the blood on his hands, sticky and still warm, on his forehead. He doesn’t even know whose blood it is anymore.

He drops his hands on top of the railing once again, and peers down, trying to see the bottom of the street, but it’s fruitless. The streetlights are few, with a lot of empty space between each other, barely enough to dispel the darkness around them. The rain is the only thing to be heard, muffling every other sound and, no matter how hard Dongpyo tries, he’s unable to locate Hyeongjun.

He stays there for a couple of minutes longer, before heading back, closing the balcony's door behind him.

The inside of the flat is a mess: a pool of blood covers part of the ground, and a trail of it leads back to the balcony. The furniture is all over the place, and some of it, like the vase, has been broken.

It doesn't take a genius to see there has been a fight, and a huge one for that matter. It doesn't take much to see there was a clear winner either.

Dongpyo's head pounds incessantly as he takes his phone from his back pocket. Leaning against the wall, he dials a number, and waits. It doesn't take long before someone picks it up.

"It's been taken care over," he says, the coldness in his voice enough to mask the weariness that's settling around him. "Hyeongjun won't be a problem anymore."

The person on the other side of the phone takes their time to reply, and when they do, it's a single word.

"Good," they reply, before hanging up on Dongpyo.

There's nothing else, no more instructions, but Dongpyo doesn't need them. He's been around enough to know what comes next, to know what's expected of him. He isn't where he is, he isn’t who he is just because, after all.

He exhales softly, giving himself a moment to compose his façade, one to regain his bearing sand stop his hands from shaking. His mouth tastes of iron, and it takes him a moment to realize it comes from the cuts on his face and lip, when the vase impacted against them, cutting him deeply, the pain a sting he had managed to push to the back of his mind.

Taking one last look at the balcony, he pushes himself off the wall and gets back to work. 

By the time the firemen's sirens can be heard, the flames threatening to engulf the whole building, Dongpyo is already long gone.

***

Hyeongjun is soon forgotten, gone from everyone’s minds in a blink. His name is barely mentioned in conversation at first, a prime example of what happens when you try to go against the wrong people.

With Hyeongjun’s name come looks thrown in Dongpyo’s direction, reverence and fear mixing together when they stare at the person who brought him down, slaughtered the other so viciously there wasn’t even a corpse to retrieve.

Hyeongjun is soon forgotten, just another cop who dared go against them and failed, while Dongpyo thrives, vicious reputation growing with every tally that gets added to his belt, a trail of corpses littering his way.

Ghosts keep him company, like they’ve always done.

***

“Long time no see,” Dongpyo purrs as he grabs Hyeongjun by the collar, dragging him to an empty room.

Hyeongjun’s eyes open wide, alarm flickering in them before he manages to smother it, and Dongpyo smiles as he sees it. He’s always been able to spot it. Dongpyo leans against the door, his eyes never leaving Hyeongjun’s face, and he snorts, amused, as the other scans the room, clearly looking for a way out, or for any sign of an ambush.

“Relax,” Dongpyo drawls, his lips twisting into a smile as Hyeongjun looks at him. “I’m not going to do anything to you.”

“What do you want, Dongpyo?” Hyeonjun asks, his arms falling limply by his sides, fingers twitching almost imperceptibly. 

Dongpyo raises his eyebrows.

“I see you’re not wasting our time with pretences, good to know,” he says, purposefully ignoring Hyeongjun’s question. “Although it’s been such a long time, Hyeongjun, maybe _I_ should be the one asking what you want,” he continues, his voice as silky as ever, but with a hint of iron beneath it.

Hyeongjun tenses, before he cracks a small smile. Dongpyo is surprised he can manage to do that, given how thoroughly he was just beaten. Hyeongjun’s left side of his face is turning yellowish, and his eye is swelling. There’s a cut on his lip that looks painful, and dried blood on his shirt. It stirs something in Dongpyo he thought he had left behind once, a lifetime ago, but he ignores it. It’s not like Hyeongjun himself seems at all bothered by any of that, after all.

Then again, he was never bothered by anything when he had a goal in mind.

Dongpyo takes a step closer, and then another, once he sees Hyeongjun doesn’t step back. He smiles to himself as he continues to walk towards him, until there’s practically no room between them, until they’re all but breathing each other’s air. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Hyeongjun’s hands moving, hovering over his hips before Hyeongjun manages to control them, balling them into fists to prevent them from moving. Dongpyo would smile at that, if he himself weren’t having trouble with staying still.

It’s like they’re back to being teenagers, a push-and-pull between them almost impossible to resist, their bodies and mind all too willing to fall back into a past rhythm that they should have forgotten a long time ago.

Dongpyo knows better than to fool himself, though.

“What are you doing here?” He asks, voice barely over a murmur, but somehow echoing in the room, as loud as if he had been screaming.

“Maybe the same thing as you,” Hyeongjun replies. “Why did you help me out there? Why did you vouch for me?”

Dongpyo shrugs, the perfect picture of nonchalance, and his lips sketch a smirk.

“Maybe I was bored,” he says, but he sees it in Hyeongjun’s face he wasn’t fooled, the glint in his eyes almost infuriating. “What are you doing here?” He shoots back, eyes inspecting Hyeongjun’s face.

Hyeongjun, too, shrugs, his lips mimicking Dongpyo’s smirk.

“Maybe I was bored too,” he replies, and Dongpyo swears he can hear Hyeongjun mocking his previous reply, the telltale sound of Hyeongjun’s petulance coating his words.

Dongpyo’s eyes darken, and he grazes the knives that are concealed under his clothes, Hyeongjun closely tracking the movement. Dongpyo’s heart beats fast in his chest and he swears Hyeongjun must hear it, with how fiercely it rattles against his ribcage. He doesn’t know what is it, if it’s the reappearance of someone he thought he’d left behind or the exhilaration of what comes next, the possibility of getting caught by anyone who opens the door, but Dongpyo has been bored, oh, so bored, for so long, and a part of him had missed this, had misses how it all had been before their paths had split and it all fell apart.

His smile broadens, turning sharper, wicker, and he turns away without so much as a last look at Hyeongjun.

“Welcome back, Hyeongjun,” he says, words getting lost as he leaves the room. “This should be fun."

***

The exchange goes well, despite everyone’s worries. Dongpyo scans the rows of faces around him, as he sticks closer to his boss, hand never leaving his gun’s handle, knives strapped to his body like a second skin.

Their reputation has grown, and with it, so has their shadow, sharks swimming at their feet, waiting for the day they’ll slip and fall to their awaiting jaws. Still, it has their perks. No one dares so much as breath in their direction, and Dongpyo know no one who knows them will even think of speaking against them.

Which is why they’re doing this exchange in broad daylight, a sign of their power and how much they just don’t care. Dongpyo’s boss had laughed in surprise and delight when he heard the idea, enjoying the thought as he thrived in the terror he instilled, a king before whom everyone bent their knee.

Even then, the exchange has been fast, as they are fearless, but even they know anything else would be testing too much their luck. 

Arms crossed in front of his chest, Dongpyo makes his way to the cars parked further down the street, the vehicles far too luxurious for the impoverished neighbourhood they’re standing in. 

Dongpyo sees it then, the tiny, flickering red dot. It hovers over his chest for a second, before disappearing and reappearing further up his throat, crawling towards his head.

He cranes his neck, trying to look for the source, and something glints in the distance, on the rooftop of one of the buildings to his left.

It’s brief, gone as fast as it appeared, but it’s there.

Dongpyo smiles, a tiny tug of his lips, as the tiny red dot appears again.

There’s only silence, before red covers everything and he stumbles to the ground, hitting the floor with a thud he barely even hears.

***

_Two kids, seated on the floor._

_Heavy hearts, bloodied hands, eyes that have seen too much._

_The Sun is setting in the horizon, dipping below the skyline, bathing everything in pink and orange tones._

***

Dongpyo softly closes the door behind him and turns on the light. The tension seeps from his body after a long day, the door between him and the world a wall behind which he can finally let himself relax, even if just for a moment.

He rolls his shoulders a few times, trying to get rid of the tension that’s built up there, to no avail. Sighing tiredly, he takes a step deeper into the room, approaching the desk that takes up most of it, but as before he can do that he freezes, fingers immediately going to the gun holster he wears around his hips.

No one is allowed inside his office when he’s not there, and yet, right on the middle of his desk, nailed to it, there’s a knife. Dongpyo comes closer to it, carefully inspecting the room. There’s no one there, but the window, which he knows he shut close before he left, is wide open. 

Dongpyo makes sure to close it once again before coming to stand by the desk. 

The knife is the only thing amiss in all the room, and it’s firmly nailed to the desk, a white, crisp card nailed with it.

Dongpyo wraps his fingers around the knife’s blade and pulls it out, his left hand coming to grab the card. A short inspection of the knife reveals it’s the same knife he used against Hyeongjun, all those months ago, and his heart stops in his chest, before restarting, galloping wildly.

The card, on the other hand, is new. It’s made of good paper, the thickness of it alone speaking of its quality, and its got a brief message written on it. 

_Thank you._

And below that, _You’re welcome_.

Nothing more than four words, not even a signature, but Dongpyo doesn’t need anything else, a slow smile creeping into his face.

_“You’re here,” a voice says to his left._

_Dongpyo says nothing, keeping his eyes to the river, as the newcomer leans against the railing, its back to the river._

_Silence settles over them and Dongpyo risks sneaking a look of the other. It’s ridiculous how much things can change, and yet stay as they were all those years ago. They are no longer kids,their hands dripping blood where they were just stained before, but the Sun still bathes them in their warm glow and Hyeongjun still feels like a dream Dongpyo doesn’t want to wake up from._

_“You were the one that left then,” Hyeongjun says when he catches Dongpyo staring._

_Having no need to pretend any longer, Dongpyo looks directly at Hyeongjun, at the half-healed bruises and cuts that litter his face and visible skin. It is faint, the way Hyeongjun winces as he moves, but Dongpyo manages to catch it, still as attuned to Hyeongjun’s expressions as he once was._

_“I know. I still would,” he replies, and Dongpyo nods._

_“I know,” he replies too, tilting his head back, face turned towards the sky, eyes closed._

_Dongpyo’s fingers itch to reach forward, inspect the injuries he left behind, but he sees them, standing beyond Hyeongjun, and he reins himself in._

_“Who is he?” He asks instead, and Hyeongjun opens his eyes, following Dongpyo’s line of sight, to the blonde guy who doesn’t take his eyes off Dongpyo._

_“Him? No one,” he says, and he must see something in Dongpyo’s face, for he snorts, softly. “He’s unimportant, Dongpyo, he’s just here to make sure I leave in once piece. He won’t do anything to you, he’s my friend,” he promises._

_Dongpyo arches an eyebrow, his thoughts on the matter clear on his face, but something of what Hyeongjun says calms his nerves._

_“You know why I’m here,” Hyeongjun says, suddenly serious, and Dongpyo looks up._

_There’s little of the boy Hyeongjun once was left in his face but, if he’s to be honest with himself, there’s little of that boy in Dongpyo too. Maybe those children disappeared a long time ago. Dongpyo wishes he didn’t recognize the man Hyeongjun is today, but he’s never been one to lie to himself and he’s always been weak, oh, so weak, when it comes to Hyeongjun. There’s been many after him, but no one could ever even come close to Hyeongjun._

_His grip on the railing turns tighter, and Hyeongjun notices._

_“Help me, and I’ll help you,” Hyeongjun says, and something about it, maybe his tone or his expression, makes Dongpyo stay still, eyes scanning Hyeongjun’s expression. “I know you, Dongpyo, and I am not here for that. This can be a mutually beneficial arrangement.”_

_There’s something Hyeongjun’s not saying, but there’s always something someone’s not saying, and Dongpyo has come to master that, finding the hidden meaning behind everyone’s words. His lips inch up, and Hyeongjun’s expression mirrors his own._

_Before saying anything, though…_

_“Did you ever look for me?” He asks._

_Hyeongjun’s eyes widen, like he wasn’t expecting the question, but he masks his surprise quickly._

_“I did, at first,” he admits, talking slowly. “But then I realized maybe not knowing would be best.”_

_Dongpyo nods, slowly, and closes his eyes. His fingers drum against the railing in a quick, soundless melody, before he nods again, more decidedly this time._

_“Let’s see how lucky we are this time, Hyeongjun.”_

Shaking his head to get rid of the memory, Hyeongjun flips over the card.

_See you soon, boss_ , reads the other side, and even through the paper Dongpyo can feel the smugness the last word gave off, almost as if Hyeongjun was there, telling him that to his face.

Fingers still wrapped around the card, Dongpyo can’t stop the smile from spreading wide across his face, a part of him looking forward to meeting him again.

**Author's Note:**

> And that's it for today! This was unbeta'ed so I'm not sure if it makes sense but I really hope it does! I hope you've enjoyed it, and, more importantly, I hope this was somewhat what you expected when you told me you wanted a Pyojun, Marta.  
> Happy birthday, Marta, I love you so much and I really hope you liked this!  
> Comments and kudos warm my heart <3
> 
> [tw](https://twitter.com/starryjinsouls) || [cc](https://curiouscat.me/Val_99)
> 
> \- Val


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